Try telling your family that you’re going to quit your job and make a living punting. Go ahead!…tell them that you either have a system that is earning you more money than you’re making going to work every day and see if you don’t wind up on a morning tv show where your loving family has an intervention with you, telling you that they are worried about your sanity…at worst. At best, your family and chances are your mates will tell you that you’re nuts. That if it was that easy everyone would be doing it and that you shouldn’t quit your day job.

But what if you actually COULD learn to be a successful punter? If you could hone your punting skills to the point that your betting bank was slowly growing instead of shrinking on a monthly basis. What if before long your betting bank had grown from a hundred pounds or dollars to a thousand? What if on a weekly basis you were clearing an easy 100 to 200….more than if you had a part time job. How long would it take before you took your punting to the next level? Enough money to pay the bills every month and three months worth of funds in your bank account for those losing streaks that are bound to come along….how would it feel to not have to live paycheck to paycheck? To have the security of basically having your own business…and a business doing something that you love!

Personally, I can see myself waking up each morning when I want and not at the urging of my alarm clock…no grueling drive to work each morning or commute back at night, realizing that more than half of my time is spent doing what someone else wants me to do when they want me to do it…basically slavery to a job that I despise. I can imagine the freedom of going on holiday when I want, where I want and for as long as I want.

Is this just a pipe dream or can this be your reality? It is honestly up to you…how hard are you willing to work?…will you take the time to find a system that works for you or create your own system?…will you have the patience to wait for your betting bank to grow and make safe bets along the way and throughout your career as a professional punter? Can you treat this like a real business and put in the time to grow your business slowly but surely? Will you continue with your ‘education’ just like any successful professional?

The fact is that close to 95-99% of all punters lose money. What makes you think that you can be amongst that elite 1-5% that don’t? What is going to separate you from the crowd? Is it going to be a superior betting system or will it be your patience, character and determination? Everyone has access to the same information and betting systems…it is all in how we use this information and these tools that will keep us in the money in the long run. We won’t win every bet and every day won’t be filled with big wins but as we hone our skills and become wiser…and with patience…we will become a member of the elite who quietly make a handsome living at their leisure while enjoying time at the track or by betting on a few select races each week.

For most the dream of making a living betting on horse racing is just that….a dream…but people just like you and me DO make a handsome living doing just that. Day in and day out they quietly wait for their race…they see opportunities and with the skill and precision of a successful stock market trader they place their bets and receive income. If you listen to the crowd you will never live the dream…but if you dare to dream it you can live it.

Visit our main site, Horse Betting Systems, to read our reviews of popular betting systems and books to see what might suit your betting style and keep from getting ripped off. I assure you that, just like the races, not every system is a ‘winner’ and there are quite a few folks out there wanting to separate you from your money. Basically…anything with a rating of three stars of less is not good….we got sick of these guys trying to hack our site or sending us nasty emails so anything three stars or less is bad….four or five stars is good. Get it? And good luck!

This fact can be seen in Calvin Borel’s winning record on Rachel Alexandra…..he is unbeaten on her, and hopefully he will remain that way come Saturday at the Preakness! LOL

The fact is that winning jockeys get the best horses. This may go against your thinking or beliefs but it is the best horses that have the money behind them in the form of ownership and these are the mounts that the best jockeys want since that’s where the money is in the form of percentage of winnings. Nothing can be more heartbreaking than having a great horse and placing it in the hands of a jockey that doesn’t know how to get the best out of that horse….perhaps a jockey that can’t hold a horse back at the begining of a race and thus the horse is spent come the end of the race. Yes, there are always exceptions to the rule and there are a lot of young, new jockeys out there with pure talent….as well as some older, “experienced” jocks that just lack real talent…that intuitiveness where they become one with the horse. But as a general rule, older, more experienced jockeys get the better horses and thus have a better winning percentage.

This fact is why as a part of my own betting system I do take into consideration a jockey’s win percentage. I don’t treat this as a flat number but I do actually take that percentage and weigh it against all the other jockeys in the running.

There are many variables to take into consideration and a jockey’s winning percentage is just one of them. You may ask, “what betting system do you use?” and I’ll tell you that I use MY betting system. It may look a lot like many of the other ones out there but this one is mine. I am constantly modifying and tweeking and and changing things a little bit as things change in an attempt to get a better handle on exactly what all these variables mean in my handicapping…but not too much. How did I come up with this system? I read a lot and take the advice of others who have gone before me and been successful like Michael Wilding of Puntology fame.

To find out more about this “education in punting”….this “PHD in betting on horse racing”….this “Masters Degree in Gambling” go to http://www.horsebettingsystems.info/recommends/puntology/

So…I’m all jazzed up with everything that’s been going on and I get an email this morning offering tips for todays races at Churchill and Belmont. These tips are coming from a very reliable handicapper who claims to have picked the trifecta for the Derby keying on Mine That Bird…so he has my attention. $15 and I’ll have hot tips from one of the most respected handicappers in the country…so I bite. I’ve got stars in my eyes and see what I think is a shortcut to winning at the track…..sounds pretty good eh? $15 and I’ve got tips for a 20-1 shot, a exacta box and a trifecta. I’m thinking that even if one of these comes in I should be able to at least break even….

Now, I’m not a big fan of tip services or tipster services. I don’t even take seriously anything that I read on message boards…at least not a plain tip sheet. I am basically an honest man and I love the sport of horse racing and I want to become as proficient as possible and tipster services always sort of reminded me of the kid in school that would want to cheat off of your test. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from picking horses yourself and win, lose or scratch, at least I have nobody to blame but myself.

Needless to say, none of the tips were worth a damn. I sure am glad that I did fork over the $100 to race with these blokes this entire week! If I want to pick losing horses I can do that for free and I’ll tell you that I had better luck on my own this past weekend! I picked 4 out of 5 races…played it safe and bet to show (because that’s just how I roll sometimes when a race is contentious)…but 4 out of 5 horses ran in the money. Not too bad for a guy that isn’t a world reknown handicapper! Perhaps I should start my own tipping service!?

Please done’t be emailing me asking me to help you by sending you my tips. There is nothing spectacular about me or my handicapping. I just love the sport and enjoy handicapping and have worked to educate myself. I WILL tell you what put me on the right path…and I’m no bullshitting you…Puntology…this is where I would begin if I were you. If you really want to save youself a lot of time and trouble just sign up for this course. It is a no bull, shoot from the hip education in how to pick winners and become a professional punter. Do what the guy says….pick up a couple of the books that I recommend on my site and get yourself an education in betting on the ponies. Don’t waste your time with tipster services and lame systems. I promise you that you won’t be dissapointed in Puntology.

To learn more about Puntology go to http://www.horsebettingsystems.info/recommends/puntology

and to see some honest reviews of horse betting systems go to

http://www.horsebettingsystems.info

Anyhow…I wanted to touch on the subject of risk and reward. We all have choices in life and even more so in horse racing. Which catagory do we wish to be in? Do we want to be risk takers, hedging our bets in hope of minimizing that risk while capitolizing upon the great rewards that come from taking “said risk.”….or do we wish to keep all risks to a minimum and only travel down the path where unfortunate things do happen yet when they do they are rare and don’t last long. Do we want to bet on a “sure thing”…or at least as much of a sure thing as we can muster in betting on horse racing? Personally, I tend to beat myself up pretty bad when going through a losing streak…take the above race that I’m waiting to go off. “Marybeth Marybeth” is the odds on favorite according to the morning line odds…but horse racing can be unpredictable, as can be seen in Mine That Bird’s Derby win a couple of weeks ago…. a smallish horse that most folks didn’t even put in the running. Things have a way of happening and it’s great if you’re on the winning side of them but not so much if you were the odds on favorite wondering “Who Dat?”….”who just went flying by me?”

There is also another school of thought that the reward for playing it safe isn’t worth risking laying that money down on the odds on favorite….the pay off isn’t enough to risk something happening like having a Mine That Bird coming inside on the rail and blowing away everyone.

I believe that there has to be a balance…that we only take the calculated risk when we believe that we have all our bases covered or remove as much of the risk as is possible and thus reap some of the rewards and take our lumps like a grown up.

The above is why I have started to change things up for myself and am looking into learning how to effectively bet Trifectas and Superfectas. I played around with them when I was younger….the exotics like Trifectas and the Daily Double were my Dad’s favorites and he taught me a bit…but not enough for me to feel confident. I’ve picked up a couple of books that I’ll post links to on here this afternoon once I’m done and I’ve also picked up a nice little course/system on Superfectas.

I will caution you against using “systems” right out of the box and thinking that the publisher’s promises of making you money without having to know a thing about horse racing…there are no “instant riches” without some sort of work…and if horse racing interests you then it won’t really be “work” (UGH! such a dirty word!)…it’s more of a puzzle or skill that I want to learn…a love of the sport and desire to be proficient at or wish to know as much about as I possibly can. What’s the payoff? The satisfaction of having this knowledge and also knowing that I have a skill that I can use for the rest of my life….a past time/hobby/job that I can work at in my leisure that will provide for me and that I enjoy at the same time. Imean, I am a pretty good handicapper…but I don’t think I will ever be as good as I want to be.

Overall, this has been a good weekend with a 100% strike rate so far for the weekend with four races yesterday and only one today that I wanted to mess with. I just couldn’t resist this horse…only the future will tell if I have chosen wisely!

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HE HE HE!!! Ran in the money! Paid 3.20 on a $2 bet to show!

I have to say that up until recently I had never considered betting on the ponies for a career…and as a matter of fact, when I was younger I used to answer “Professional Gambler” when people I didn’t know asked me what I did for a living, but I was a wise crackin’ young kid. But even back then I never thought that I would seriously consider the possibility of working in that direction nor did I think that it would even be a possibility! I had no idea that folks actually made a living betting on horse races.

All of that changed not too long ago and I can’t even remember how I came across this information and began looking deeper into punting or betting on horse racing in order to make a full time living. Even writing this it sounds absurd but there are indeed untold numbers of ordinary folks just like me and you that are doing just that. How you ask? Well let me fill you in a little bit on my past…

When I was younger I always enjoyed going to the races with my father and his buddies. My Dad was pretty good at handicapping and liked to bet on trifectas and other exotics. He was the one that taught me about how to lay your bets…how to box a trifecta and what the daily double was and he would almost think out loud and this is how I learned. It wasn’t too often that we went home empty handed and on the rare occasions that we did he would say “well, I look at it as paying for a good night out” if anyone remarked that he lost at the track.

Years later I had occasion to go to the track from time to time with friends. Some were better punters than other and some were just plain lucky….but I always managed to walk away with a little bit more than I went with and people were amazed that I could pick trifectas like I did. That was years ago though and I know now that my system wasn’t anything great. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t a system at all! I would read the racing form and look at the past performances as if it was a novel. I would sit and just run all the information through my head and I would get a “feel” for how I felt the field would finish. Like I said, I had no real system…

These days, as I ponder actually building a betting bank and learn about money management and the like, I look at a racing form a little different. I have a plan…I am looking for certain things in a horse’s past performance before I lay my money down. It is no longer a gut feeling or any sort of “feeling” at all any longer. Yes, different factors are taken into consideration as I read over the form…some of the indicators that I used to look for are a part of my “betting system” and each of them carries a certain amount of weight. You see….I am no longer really gambling, as strange as that sounds. Yes, technically I am gambling but not in the traditional way that most of the general public would view it. I am not looking for that long shot that is going to pay a big dividend. I am looking for a horse that is almost a sure thing. I am looking for a low risk, low reward horse that can almost guarantee me a return on the money I lay down. My profit margin may not be huge but I would rather make ten bets where I make a little than make ten losing wagers as I wait on that longshot to run into money. Those horses are few and far between indeed.

So I hope you will follow me as I learn more about this exciting past time and live the dream that I never thought I would have the opportunity to follow.

By the way…the system that I use now is called How To Place Bet on Favourites For a Living or “How $15 Safely Makes $157.28″ It is a very simple system and is perfect for both novices and those that have been around for a while. You can actually try it risk free from the publisher, Mohammed Ali at www.PublishersParadise.info